Teams of scientists from Michigan Technological University led by wildlife ecologist Rolf Peterson since 1975, and joined in 2000 by John Vucetich, assistant professor of forest resources and environmental science, have carefully monitored the waxing and waning of animal populations [on a remote island in Lake Superior in an effort to better understand the predator–prey relationship.].
For example, in January 2000 researchers watched as a lone female wolf entered the territory of one of the wolf bands they had dubbed the Middle Pack. She was attacked by the wolf pack and forced into the chilly water of Lake Superior. Though wounded, she swam back to shore and survived. A male split from the Middle Pack and came to her aid, staying with her and licking her wounds after she had been left for dead. The ostracized couple later mated, founding what became the Chippewa Harbor Pack, a group that has since conquered territory in the Middle Pack’s dwindling empire.
Though the scientists don’t know if such individual and pack behavior is a common occurrence, observations like these on Isle Royale provide insight into how animal societies function as well as the vicissitudes of the food chain cycle on Isle Royale, also helping to inform other models of the natural world.
Indeed.
Do we find this story moving — at least, I do — because we too are predators?
Front page
You find the story moving ...
… because millions of years of evolution have turned us into social beings who have both sympathy and empathy. It’s part of the group survival mechanism, which is important to our species.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/scienc…
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Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com
True...
… but I’m also wondering if the prey animals, the moose, have the same spectrum of emotional associations, and if so, why.
And you’re right. I don’t read enough.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
Only in the sense of interspecies predation
as opposed to the biological sense of preying on other animal species for food. In other words, if there are prey species whose members attack each other, we’d react to a similar story about such animals in the same way.
I don’t quite get why this story about wolves has anything to do with the predator-prey relationship. Interspecies predation isn’t usually for food, is it? It’s about territory and sexual dominance.
And how about a story in which a prey animal helped another of its species after the latter had been attacked by a predator animal? Not quite as poignant, perhaps, but we’d react similarly.
I think our primary emotional response is due to anthropomorphizing the animals’ altruism more than it is identifying with their predator nature.
Sympathy and empathy
may play a part in making the story moving, but so do rationalization, ignoring the facts and a moral sense capable of “looking the other way”.
Because while we may identify with the eventual triumph of the persecuted and opressed, it requires that we ignore that the female wolf’s ultimate success lies in applying exactly the same ruthlessness and intra-species violence she was subject to. Unless you’re Walt Disney.
Her pack probably didn’t gain dominance over her previous attackers through social programs and free and fair elections. Where is our sympathy and empathy for her victims in finding this story moving?
Which isn’t to say that sympathy and empathy don’t have evolutionary value or result from evolutionary pressures. It’s just to say that violence and cruelty have also survived millions of years of evolution because they have survival value as well, particularly in the context of the kind of social evolution that EO Wilson talks about (for example, Andrew Bard Schmookler’s Parable of the Tribes).
The trick is to arrange contingencies so that our moral values are congruent with what is evolutionarily successful in a particular setting.
yeah, it's like a revenge/vengeance story
in many ways. Or Irony/karma, or something, maybe. or “payback is a bitch”, …
Wolves
amberglow
You must mean “payback is an alpha female”.
I think we can sympathize without it being about predation
at least I know I can. You can have fellow-creature sympathy without having to get that theoretical, it’s natural. Someone/some creature in pain calls for sympathy, whatever form it takes. And to think of a hurt creature suddenly no longer alone, but cared for—touches a deeper chord of relief that has nothing to do with whether one is prey or predator (or in the human case, a bit of both).
Predator animals
I don’t know whether predator animals have emotions similar to the ones we have. But all social animals, which wolves are, surely have some kind of similar feelings for the members of their group, though not necessarily about animals they consider food.
In fact, we humans have a similar dichotomy of feelings about those in our group and those not in our group.
Robert M. Sapolsky, writing in Foreign Affairs, in “A Natural History of Peace”:
“In exploring these subjects, one often encounters a pessimism built around the notion that humans, as primates, are hard-wired for xenophobia. Some brain-imaging studies have appeared to support this view in a particularly discouraging way… More recent studies, however, should mitigate this pessimism. Test a person who has a lot of experience with people of different races, and the amygdala does not activate. Or, as in a wonderful experiment by Susan Fiske, of Princeton University, subtly bias the subject beforehand to think of people as individuals rather than as members of a group, and the amygdala does not budge. Humans may be hard-wired to get edgy around the Other, but our views on who falls into that category are decidedly malleable.”
Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com
Violence and cruelty
badger: “violence and cruelty have also survived millions of years of evolution because they have survival value as well”
If you mean inTRAspecies violence and cruelty, sure, there is some. But violence and cruelty aren’t the only way that pack animals rise to dominance. It’s too bad I can’t get a book published on this topic.
“People who live in tribes do not have a ’greed is good’ mentality. In a tribal environment selfishness is discouraged, while generosity is admired and rewarded. One did not become a chief simply by being the strongest. An aspirant for chiefdom had to build coalitions of supporters, be willing to listen to the wisdom of the elders, and respect the natural world. He was most likely to become and remain chief if he was known as a brave hunter and warrior, but also as a fair and generous person.
“Living in groups actually predates our species, if we can assume that the common ancestors of humans, apes, and monkeys lived in the same kinds of troops our simian relatives live in to this day. Evolutionary biologists are finding that social skills, including altruism, honor, and even a sense of fairness and justice are tendencies found in the apes, our closest relatives. (See Matt Ridley, Robert Wright, and Frans de Waal.) Perhaps we can also assume, then, that these are traits we and the apes have inherited from a common ancestor.
“If these scientists are correct, we humans are born with a built-in conflict. As even the earliest philosophers understood, we are torn between our self-interest and our desire to help others.”
Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com